


I Know What You Are

by KillHitlerAgain



Category: Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: (Only a little bit but it's there and it's cute), (Rest assured he lived a long and happy life), Crowley is Good With Kids (Good Omens), Fluff and Crack, Fluff and Humor, Gen, Humor, Mentions of vampires, Minor Character Death, Misunderstandings, POV Outsider, References to Bram Stoker's Dracula, cool old people
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 05:30:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20718884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KillHitlerAgain/pseuds/KillHitlerAgain
Summary: Winnie has been living in the same flat for fifty years. And over that fifty years, her upstairs neighbor (A man named A.J. Crowley) had never seemed to age a day. She thinks she's figured out why.





	I Know What You Are

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [“Little old lady on the floor below”](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683250) by [Mischievous_Misfit](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mischievous_Misfit/pseuds/Mischievous_Misfit). 

> Mischievous_Misfit wrote a version of this story based on a headcanon I left on a Tumblr post. Theirs is great, but I thought I would write my own story that is more inline with what I was thinking.

Winnie had moved into her flat in Mayfair right after the war had ended. The love of her life had been injured in battle but, thank God, he had been returned to her safe and alive, with only his left leg missing. They vowed to get married as soon as possible, no waiting, and that they did. And right after, they had moved into their own place together, a home all for themselves. Winnie had been 19, almost 20 years old, then.

They had moved in on the bottom floor. There was only one other flat in that building, right up above where her and George were living. The man living there wasn’t much older than they were*, and he seemed to live alone. He was so handsome, though, and he had a nice car and clothes. She had wondered for a while why he never married, until one night she spied him coming home at 11pm with a man with bright blond hair and a face like an angel**, and didn’t see them leave the next morning. 

[*Or at least she thought so at the time. She knew better nowadays.

**She didn’t know it, but it wasn’t ‘like’ anything. It just was.]

She didn’t learn much about him over the years, at least at first. His name was A.J. Crowley, she knew, and he always wore sunglasses and black clothes. The story she had put together was that he’d got an eye injury in combat, thus the sunglasses even when he didn’t need them, and that he always dressed the way he did as a tribute to a friend that didn’t make it.

It wasn’t until Bradley, her second child, was starting school that her story started falling apart. And it wasn’t until Joyce, her first child, had left home to move in with Alice and Ivy* that she realized there might not be a logical explanation in the first place.

[*Two good ‘friends’ of Joyce.]

Mr. Crowley had stopped her in the hallway a month or so afterwards, and asked where she had gone*. Winnie had explained where she was, and started lamenting on the fact that oh, kids, they grow up so fast, don’t they?, when she had realized that he didn’t look any different than he had when she, herself, had first left home. It had been almost twenty years, and he didn’t look a day over fifty (Which he must be, she’d thought, as years ago she had overheard him reminisce to his handsome friend about where they’d both been when they’d heard England had entered WWI.) She never asked about it, of course. She was much too polite for that. But she still couldn’t help but think about it.

[*While Winnie didn’t interact much with him in those days, her daughter had taken quite a shine to him. She had tried to discourage her at first, telling her it was impolite to bother people like that, but after Mr. Crowley had assured her it was perfectly fine with him if she wanted to bother people, Winnie had given in and let Joyce do what she wanted. Her only issue was that every time her daughter went to visit their neighbor, she always came back acting more and more unladylike and more liable to get into trouble.]

Years came and went. Bradley got married and moved out. Joyce had told her mother that she didn’t like men, but women. Bradley had had a child named Stephen. Ivy had changed their name to Ira and told everything that they were now a man and would like to be referred to as such. And Joyce had told her mother that she did like men, actually, but that she still liked women, too. And all that time her rent had, miraculously, never gone up by even a single pence.

Only much later on, after her husband passed away in his sleep, did Winnie start interacting more with the man-shaped-but-maybe-not-a-man person that lived upstairs. This trend had all started after the funeral, and she was almost too depressed to leave her home. When she had finally emerged from her flat long enough to go grocery shopping, she noticed Mr. Crowley sitting in his car and talking to someone on the phone. When he noticed her, he hung up and rolled down his window, greeting her and asking how she had been doing. She had explained what had happened, and that right now she was just going to the store for some groceries.

What happened next was quite unexpected. A look had flashed across his face, and he started to smile, before telling her to just go back inside, he’d go to the store for her, she could pay him back later, it was fine. And an hour later, he returned, paper bags in hand, and set them down on her counter, before giving the kitchen a once over and sauntering back into the living room.

Winnie got to work putting the groceries away. In one bag, there was half a gallon of skim milk, a bundle of brown bananas, a container of some sort of butter substitute, and some chicken liver, while in the other there was a cheap loaf of white bread and a container of oatmeal-raisin biscuits. It was, of course, not what she would get herself, but she was quite happy with it despite that. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, as they say.

After she had put the food away, she wandered into the living room where her guest was admiring the decor. She walked up next to him and smiled.

“Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Crow-”

“Crowley.” He cut her off. “It’s just Crowley. None of that ‘Mr.’ business.”

“Oh. Well, thank you, Crowley.” She patted his arm and followed his gaze to where a large painting of a snake in some grass hung above the sofa.

“You like that painting?” She asked.

He grunted.

She took that as a ‘yes’, and continued.

“I do too. My husband picked it out. He loved snakes, and lizards, and frogs, and the sort. Ever since he was a kid. There was a frog pond in his family’s garden when he was growing up, and he used to wade into it and try to grab them. His mother used to tell him if he kept doing that, he’d turn into one.” She sighed and chuckled quietly to herself, remembering when they were 14 and he presented her not with a flower, but a salamander, for Valentine’s Day.

Crowley looked as if he was about to say something about that, but then his gaze wandered over to a chest of drawers on the other side of the room, a top which sat various objects. He walked over to it. Winnie followed.

The various objects included a family photograph, a small clay figurine that Bradley had made once when he was a small child, and a family bible.

Winnie realized he was glancing uncomfortably at the bible.

“Is that bible blessed?” He asked her. The question seemed to be undertoned by another question that asked ‘Why would you bless a bloody bible?’

“Oh, that, yes, it is.” She would wonder later how he could possibly tell. “My nephew got it blessed by a priest. Oh! And he also got me some holy water blessed by the Pope when he went to the Vatican last April. I think it’s in one of these top drawers…”

She reached over for one of the handles, but was stopped by a hand grabbing her wrist.

“Actually, uh,” Crowley stammered. “I just remembered I have, uh, things to do. See you later, uh, bye. Sayonara.” He waved to her as he walked out of the flat and shut the door behind him.

About a week after that weird occurrence, she ran into him in the hall, and invited him over for tea. She was worried that she had made him uncomfortable last time, talking about religion. He was apprehensive at first, but after he peeked into her apartment and noticed that not only was the bible gone, there was no religious imagery anywhere in the living room, he seemed to decide that it was fine and walked inside.

Winnie went into the kitchen and brought out the tea a few minutes later, along with a couple of slices of banana bread that she had made the other day. He refused the banana bread, but took the tea, and they got to talking.

After that, they met for tea about once a week on the regular. She always made something new to offer to him, but he never ate, always talking about how he wasn’t hungry or sweets weren’t exactly his thing. But they mostly just talked about all sorts of this and that.

He seemed to be pretty careful about the things he said at first, always just safe topics, like how his house plants were doing. Eventually, though, he started talking about someone he called “angel”, who Winnie assumed (correctly) was the blond one she’d seen so many times. And, sometimes, if she offered wine instead of tea and he got a bit tipsy, his teeth would seem to get sharper than usual and he’d start talking about things that wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense if Winnie didn’t have as open of a mind as she did*.

[*For instance, he once reminisced about the time he first heard Mozart in concert, and how no one has ever been able to play his piano pieces as well Wolfgang himself did.]

Today, though, Winnie had been carrying in her groceries, and Crowley had stopped to help her, as per usual. However, after carrying in the bags, and setting them on the counter while he helped her put stuff away, she realized that the bag she insisted she carry inside herself was not, in fact, the one that held the garlic.

And she began to freak out.

“Stop!” She yelled as she knocked over the bag that Crowley was about the reach his hand into. “You’re going to hurt yourself.”

Crowley looked at her, confused. What was so dangerous to him that he couldn’t touch it, but she could, apparently?

She sighed, and realized that she’d finally have to explain that she knew.

“My dear, I know you aren’t human. I mean, I’ve lived here for over 50 years, and you haven’t aged a day! And when I saw how you reacted around that bible, well…” She peered up at him. “It all just fit together.”

“Uh, huh.” He closed his mouth and slapped his thighs with his hands. “Well, guess I probably should have saw that coming.” He seemed less broken up about it than she thought he’d be.

He stuck his hands in his pockets and stood there for a minute, gazing around, before glancing back at Winnie, who was still standing there, waiting.

“So, uh, doesn’t bother you? I’d thought with the whole religious thing you might not be too fond of having me living upstairs. Last time a little religious old lady caught onto to what I was it didn’t exactly go swimmingly.”

She looked appalled at the suggestion. “What? Of course it doesn’t bother me. I do love God, of course, but He’s all about forgiveness, you know. And it’s not exactly your fault you’re like you are, is it?”

Crowley scoffed to himself, seemingly finding this funny for a reason Winnie didn’t understand, but didn’t make a move to argue.

“So, what’s in that in the bag that’s so harmful, anyway?” He continued nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t just concerned he was a supernatural being. “‘s not like they sell holy water at the grocer.”

“Oh, well, um.” She reached into the bag and pulled out a pouch. “It’s garlic.” She looked sheepish.

“Wh-Garlic?” Crowley sputtered, as if that was the last thing he had expected her to pull out. “Wha? Why would garlic hurt me? I love garlic. Well, not really, I mean, I don’t really eat that much, but I go in for it now and again.”

Now it was her turn to be confused. 

“Wait, but, how?” She asked, trying to understand. Maybe the stories were just wrong, but that one was way too prevalent to simply be a myth, right? “You’re a vampire.”

Crowley froze. For a second, Winnie was afraid that she’d made him angry with her assertion, but then a smile spread across his face and he started laughing hysterically.

“You-you-” He struggled to talk over his laughter. “You thought I was a vampire? A bloody vampire? You’ve literally seen me outside in sunlight!”

“I just assumed that was a myth! I mean, it never said that Dracula couldn’t go out in the sun, now could it?” She defended herself, ignoring for a second the fact that he just confirmed that he wasn’t actually what she thought he was.

Crowley calmed himself down and coughed into his hand. “That’s ‘cause Bram Stoker never met a real vampire. That was me, too, actually. The inspiration. Idiot believed in vampires but didn’t believe me when I told him I was a demon.” He smirked.

“Wait, y-you-” She stammered.

Realizing he hadn’t properly explained, he re-introduced himself. “Oh, yeah, sorry. ‘m a demon, name’s Crowley, you already knew that part though. You’re familiar with my work, yeah? You probably know me as the serpent that tempted Eve or the reason the M25 is so shitty.” He lifted up his sunglasses and stuck out his very-much-not-human tongue to showcase his point. “And I’m not a vampire.”

She stared slack jawed at him, not answering.

“...You know? Demon? Fallen angel? Hellfire and brimstone? Damned for all eternity?” He waved his hands in front of her face.

Then, a horrified expression overcame him. “Wait, wait, you’re not going to try to exorcise me now that you know I’m a demon, right? Because, one, this is actually my body, I’m not possessing it, and two, holy water is going to do a whole lot more than banish me to Hell so if you’re gonna go grab that I think I should proba-”

“No, no, no, no, no.” She shook her head and waved her hands in front of yourself. She was still shocked, but was beginning to process it. “It’s fine. I mean, maybe it’s not fine, but you’ve been keeping me company and I really do appreciate it, and how rude would it be to stop talking to you just because you’re a demon? Honestly, I’m mostly just trying to take in the fact that I was wrong about you being, well, you know. I’m not usually one for being hard headed like that, of course, but I was just so certain…” 

The demon chuckled at that. “Eh, well, ‘s like said before, ‘s not like you’re the first person to think that.”

She smiled at that. “Well, I’m glad. Now would you be a dear and help me put the rest of these groceries away?”

They laughed to each other as they shoved things where they went. You would think that a woman, just now learning that her neighbor for the past 50 years was really a demon, ought to be more concerned. But the fact of the matter is, human life is too weird to question things such as this. Especially not when that said demon makes for good company.


End file.
